Spiderdemon



The spiderdemon, called the spider mastermind in The Ultimate Doom, Doom II, Final Doom and the Depths of Doom Trilogy's manual, is the boss of the final episode of Doom, Inferno, and again of the final episode of The Ultimate Doom, Thy Flesh Consumed. The PlayStation version of Doom in turn features two spiderdemons as the bosses of its final level, Redemption Denied on higher skill levels. The spiderdemon has 3000 hit points and is one of the toughest creatures in the game. The spiderdemon appears as a huge brain with facial features on it, mounted atop a cybernetic chassis with four mechanical legs and a super chaingun, making it similar to a spider at first glance.

The Doom II game booklet humorously presents the spiderdemon as the mother of the arachnotrons:

"You guess the Arachnotrons had to come from somewhere. Hi, mom. She doesn't have a plasma gun, so thank heaven for small favors. Instead, she has a super-chaingun. Crap."

- Doom II instruction manual

The spiderdemon is not mentioned in the Doom game booklet, presumably to avoid a. Perhaps as a result of this, the game booklet for the Depths of Doom Trilogy erroneously states that it appears in Doom II only.

Combat characteristics
A spiderdemon emits a demonic roar which starts low-pitched but progressively "grows" in a crescendo to a high-pitched tone once activated. The huge 'super chaingun' on the spiderdemon's chassis fires three bullets with every shot, much like the shotgun guy's shotgun, but at a rapid rate of 467 shots per minute. When a spiderdemon begins firing, it will not stop until its target moves out of view or dies, or if it is stunned (where it will walk a bit immediately after the pain state) or killed. Similar behavior can be observed in the heavy weapon dude and the arachnotron.

Spiderdemons, like cyberdemons, are immune to all blast damage, taking only direct hit damage from hits. This means a greater number of rockets or arch-vile blasts are required to kill them than might be expected.

When killed, the spiderdemon's mechanical body shuts down (in a forcible way) and collapses. A soft, whirring-down sound is heard (similarly to the mechanical rotor of an electric drill stopping spinning) as the body falls to the ground, engulfed in flames. Its brain is splattered on impact (at this moment, similarly to the cyberdemon, the monster then emits an animalistic grunt that is readily cut out by an exploding sound, possibly from the collapsing brains) and all that remains are its shattered robotic legs and dismembered facial features in a huge pool of blood, broken machinery, and gibs.

E4M8 boss battle
On hard skill levels, there will be a few barons with her. You can use them to weaken/kill the spiderdemon. Near the spiderdemon is a hidden area with a BFG9000 and some ammo. Check the walls while she is in a fight with an enemy so you do not risk being killed.

General tactics
When fighting a spiderdemon, it is essential to keep one's distance as much as possible; even at medium range, the monster's attack can be devastating. Using the more powerful weapons is recommended against it, although since the spiderdemon has a low pain chance, rapid-fire weapons will not completely prevent it from attacking. Using melee attacks against it is extremely dangerous, except in the rare cases where the spiderdemon is pinned by another attacker. In E3M8: Dis, it is possible to stand up on the ledge above ground level and stay at great distance from the monster. At this range, the spiderdemon's attack will not aim toward the player, and therefore never hit its target. Also, the spiderdemon is large and tall enough that, even while standing on the ledge, projectile attacks will reach it.

However, due to its large size, it will soak in most if not all BFG rays from a point blank shot, dying in only 1 or 2 hits. A skilled player can therefore kill it easily by running up to it and shooting it twice with the BFG before it can kill the player. Utilizing monster infighting can be effective when battling a spiderdemon. If one does not have the BFG, the rocket launcher or the plasma gun are recommended.

Inspiration and development
The sprites for the spiderdemon were based on a latex-and-metal model built under contract by Gregor Punchatz's company, TXFX. This model was the first of several such models; subsequent ones were used for the monsters in Doom II. Punchatz designed the model based on a pencil sketch by Kevin Cloud.

The appearance of the spiderdemon is inspired by the leader-brain from the 1986 version of ', "mixed with the '". Punchatz explicitly disavows any influence from the  series villain Krang.

Despite being called a "" the monster has only six visible limbs rather than eight: two arms and four mechanical legs. Sandy Petersen suggested this was because four legs were easier to animate than six.

The sprites differ in several ways from the original model, as seen here. The model has a three-barreled chaingun implanted right below the mouth, while the game sprites have a six-barreled chaingun implanted into the base. The original model matches the three bullets fired by the spiderdemon. The smaller, three-barreled chaingun is still visible in some of the sprites, particularly in side views and during the death animation. The appearance of the six-barreled chaingun is reminiscent of the bosses in Wolfenstein 3D.

The spiderdemon was originally intended to have a secondary "magic" attack. However, it was never implemented because the designers could not decide on what the attack would do. Perhaps as a reference to this, the version seen in Doom (2016) has several magic attacks.

Data



 * 1) This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, and bullet dispersal are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
 * 2) The target must be close enough to compensate for the weapon's recoil.
 * 3) Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.

Appearance statistics
In the IWADs the spiderdemon is first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of spiderdemons per skill level:

Of the maps covered on the Doom Wiki, the following have the highest numbers of spiderdemons in single-player: This data was last verified on June 16, 2023.

Doom II RPG
The spiderdemon appears as a boss in Doom II RPG under the name "Spider Mastermind." When it is defeated, it breaks apart into three arachnotrons.

Doom (2016)
The Spider Mastermind is the final boss of Doom (2016), formed from the body of Olivia Pierce in union with the Lord of the Fourth Age of Hell.